Is Your Company's Culture Ready to Innovate?

Is Your Company’s CultureReady to Innovate?

At this year’s Front End of Innovation event, George Buckley, executive chairman and recently retired President and CEO of 3M, said, “A company can only be innovative if you have the culture to accept change and risk … innovation comes down to people and how you lead and inspire them.”  As companies seek opportunities to innovate, they will rely on their people to move their company forward. So what can organizations do to ensure their employees are optimized to be the most productive, most innovative they can be?

ATTI-certified consultant, Mark Debinski was recently working with a client where innovation was a key initiative in the company’s strategic plan.Despite this tenet of innovation, the company’s culture prevented it from changing and taking the risks necessary for its people to be innovative. The company, a hundred year old national law firm, had recently acquired two boutique firms located nearly 3,000 miles away. The clash of cultures from these polarized entities virtually paralyzed the managing partners’ ability to innovate and grow the firm, despite the fact that the acquisition was a vital part of that strategy. The people working within the firm were stuck in its legacy culture, continuing to do things the way they've always done them. Thisculture supported only the ideas of department directors, eliminating the opportunity for other employees to contribute to the growth of the firm.

Debinski and his team applied two distinct techniques to help the firm transform its prohibitive culture into a more objective one where employees had an opportunity to help innovate the company. First, they took the firm’s employees through trust-building exercises. This was necessary to create an atmosphere where employees feel a sense of safety and security. With this feeling of safety, employees were more likely to take the necessary and valuable risks that make for creative and innovative outcomes, which in turn will create high quality business results.

Once trust was established, Debinski’s team engaged with different departments throughout the firm using TTI Success Insights’ TriMetrix® HD assessment. Every employee was assessed, and the comprehensive TriMetrix HD reports revealed the distinct value each employee was capable of bringing to the firm. Breaking out of the habit of only trusting the words of director-level employees, the assessments quantified the value of other employees. And, because trust had been built throughout the firm, cross-collaborative teams were developed and began innovating. By eliminating personal biases, the firm was finally operating at its desired level. The assessment process provided a space for objective conversation to take place and true talents to be revealed.

Tolearn more about companies that have used TTI Success Insights assessments tocreate innovative human resources solutions, read our collection of case studieshere: http://www.ttisuccessinsights.com/why/case-studies

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Favor Larson is Senior Business Services Consultant for TTI Success Insights, striving to improve the quality of the workplace through the application of assessments in businesses using an in depth knowledge of behaviors, motivators, personal skills, emotional intelligence and acumen.